I’m struggling to understand why anyone would choose one big ritual like ‘Doom circles’ instead of just purposefully inculcating a culture of opennes to giving / receiving critique that is supportive and can help others? And I have a lot of concerns about unintended negative consequences of this approach.
Overall, this runs counter to my experience of what good professional feedback relationships look like;
I suspect the formality will make it feel weirder for people who aren’t used to offering feedback / insights to start doing it in a more natural, every day way; because they’ve only experienced it in a very bounded way which is likely highly emotionally charged. They might get the impression that feedback will always feel emotional, whereas if you approach it well it doesn’t have to feel negatively emotional even when some of the content is less positive.
there should be high enough trust and mutual regard for my colleague to say to me “you know what? You do have a bit of a tendency to rush planning / be a bit rude to key stakeholders and that hasn’t worked so well in the past, so maybe factor that into the upcoming projects”
low-context feedback is often not helpful; this is because someone’s strengths are often what could ‘doom’ them if over-relied upon, and different circumstances require different approaches. This sounds like feedback given with very little context—especially if limited to 90 seconds and the receiver cannot give more context to help the giver.
feedback is ultimately just an opinion; you should be able to take and also discard it. It’s often just based on someone’s one narrower vantage point of you so if you get lots of it it will necessarily be contradictory. So if you acted on it all, you’d be screwed. This sounds like a fetishisation / glorification of the feedback given; which would then make it harder for the receiver of doom to assess each bit on it’s merits, synthesise and integrate it better because of this.
A younger version of myself with less self-esteem would have participated and would have deferred excessively to others views even if I felt they had blindspots. I think I would integrate all of the things I heard, even if they were things I thought were likely not true on balance, and that these would rebound in a chorus of negative self-talk. But I think part of the attraction for me to Doom Circle’s would have been:
all these smart people do it; there must be something to it
feeling like I must not be ‘truly committed to sef-improvement’ if I don’t want to participate
and, in a small part, the rush / pain of hearing ‘the truth’, a form of psychic self-harm like reading a diary you know you shouldn’t
Now, I think I would just refuse to do this and rather put forward my counter-proposal, which would look be more sharing reflections on each others traits / skills, what could enable us and hold us back, and two-way dialogue about this to try and figure out what is / isn’t. And doing so regularly—build up of negativity is always damaging when it eventually comes out, but also why hold back on the positivity when it’s a great fuel for most people?
why anyone would choose one big ritual like ‘Doom circles’ instead of just purposefully inculcating a culture of opennes to giving / receiving critique that is supportive and can help others?
These don’t sound mutually exclusive to me; you can have a formal ritual about something and also practice doing some of the related skills on a more regular basis.
That said, for many people, it would be emotionally challenging if they needed to be ready to receive criticism all the time. A doom circle is something where you can receive feedback at such a time when you have emotionally prepared for it, and then go back to receiving less criticism normally.
It might be better if everyone was capable of always receiving it, but it’s also good to have options for people who aren’t quite there yet. A doom circle is a thing that can be done in less than an hour, whereas skill-building is much more of a long-term project.
low-context feedback is often not helpful;
That’s true, but also: since people generally know that low-context feedback can be unhelpful, they might hold back offering any such feedback, even when it would be useful! Having an explicit context for offering the kind of critical feedback that you know might be incorrect gives people the chance to receive even the kinds of impressions that they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to hear.
feedback is ultimately just an opinion; you should be able to take and also discard it.
Yes, in any well-run doom circle, this exact thing would be emphasized in the beginning (levin mentioned this in their comment and it was probably done in the beginning of the circles I’ve participated in, as well; I don’t remember what the exact preliminaries were, but it certainly matches my general sense of the spirit of the circle).
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear you feel more comfortable setting boundaries now. I think it is a good flag that some people might not be in a place to do that, so we should be mindful of social / status dynamics and try our best to make this truly opt-in.
I agree there are other types of feedback that are probably better for most people in most cases, and that Doom Circles are just one format that is not right for lots of people. I meant to emphasize that in the post but I see that might not have come through.
Just to emphasise, I would bet that ~all participants would get a lot less value from one / a few doom circle sessions than they would from:
cultivating skills to ask / receive feedback that is effective (with all the elements I’ve written about above) which they can use across time—including after leaving a workshop, and / or;
just a pervasive thread throughout the workshop helping people develop both these skills and also initiate some relationships at the workshops where they can keep practising this feedback seeking / giving in future.
I did loads of this kind of stuff on (granted, somewhat poorly executed) graduate schemes and it proved persistently valuable, and helped you get ‘buddies’ who you could be this open, reflective and insight-seeking with.
I agree there are other types of feedback that are probably better for most people in most cases, and that Doom Circles are just one format that is not right for lots of people. I meant to emphasize that in the post but I see that might not have come through.
I feel like I would re-edit this post maybe to emphasise “this is an option, but not necessarily the lead option”, because its original positioning feels more like it’s a canonical approach?
I’m glad to hear you feel more comfortable setting boundaries now. I think it is a good flag that some people might not be in a place to do that, so we should be mindful of social / status dynamics and try our best to make this truly opt-in.
Sadly I think I would have been a fairly good example of most younger EAs still forging their sense of self and looking for belonging to a community; in particular the kinds of people who might feel they need this kind of feedback. So if these are going to be run up again, I’d think reflecting on this in setting terms / design would be useful.
Thanks for the follow-up! I’m working on a different format that I think might address some of your concerns (I posted this quickly to link to it in an email about the new format).
I agree I should add a caveat above. It seems like you and others are getting the impression that I think this is the best way to get feedback/I’m an expert on Doom Circles (which is understandable, since I chose to post about them!). I’ll write something quickly now (I don’t have childcare at the moment, so might make changes next week).
Also agree I could have done more to explain the importance of setting norms. I’ll make a note to revisit next week when I have more time.
Really appreciate you pushing to make sure I understood the feedback :)
I’m struggling to understand why anyone would choose one big ritual like ‘Doom circles’ instead of just purposefully inculcating a culture of opennes to giving / receiving critique that is supportive and can help others? And I have a lot of concerns about unintended negative consequences of this approach.
Overall, this runs counter to my experience of what good professional feedback relationships look like;
I suspect the formality will make it feel weirder for people who aren’t used to offering feedback / insights to start doing it in a more natural, every day way; because they’ve only experienced it in a very bounded way which is likely highly emotionally charged. They might get the impression that feedback will always feel emotional, whereas if you approach it well it doesn’t have to feel negatively emotional even when some of the content is less positive.
there should be high enough trust and mutual regard for my colleague to say to me “you know what? You do have a bit of a tendency to rush planning / be a bit rude to key stakeholders and that hasn’t worked so well in the past, so maybe factor that into the upcoming projects”
low-context feedback is often not helpful; this is because someone’s strengths are often what could ‘doom’ them if over-relied upon, and different circumstances require different approaches. This sounds like feedback given with very little context—especially if limited to 90 seconds and the receiver cannot give more context to help the giver.
feedback is ultimately just an opinion; you should be able to take and also discard it. It’s often just based on someone’s one narrower vantage point of you so if you get lots of it it will necessarily be contradictory. So if you acted on it all, you’d be screwed. This sounds like a fetishisation / glorification of the feedback given; which would then make it harder for the receiver of doom to assess each bit on it’s merits, synthesise and integrate it better because of this.
A younger version of myself with less self-esteem would have participated and would have deferred excessively to others views even if I felt they had blindspots. I think I would integrate all of the things I heard, even if they were things I thought were likely not true on balance, and that these would rebound in a chorus of negative self-talk. But I think part of the attraction for me to Doom Circle’s would have been:
all these smart people do it; there must be something to it
feeling like I must not be ‘truly committed to sef-improvement’ if I don’t want to participate
and, in a small part, the rush / pain of hearing ‘the truth’, a form of psychic self-harm like reading a diary you know you shouldn’t
Now, I think I would just refuse to do this and rather put forward my counter-proposal, which would look be more sharing reflections on each others traits / skills, what could enable us and hold us back, and two-way dialogue about this to try and figure out what is / isn’t. And doing so regularly—build up of negativity is always damaging when it eventually comes out, but also why hold back on the positivity when it’s a great fuel for most people?
These don’t sound mutually exclusive to me; you can have a formal ritual about something and also practice doing some of the related skills on a more regular basis.
That said, for many people, it would be emotionally challenging if they needed to be ready to receive criticism all the time. A doom circle is something where you can receive feedback at such a time when you have emotionally prepared for it, and then go back to receiving less criticism normally.
It might be better if everyone was capable of always receiving it, but it’s also good to have options for people who aren’t quite there yet. A doom circle is a thing that can be done in less than an hour, whereas skill-building is much more of a long-term project.
That’s true, but also: since people generally know that low-context feedback can be unhelpful, they might hold back offering any such feedback, even when it would be useful! Having an explicit context for offering the kind of critical feedback that you know might be incorrect gives people the chance to receive even the kinds of impressions that they otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to hear.
Yes, in any well-run doom circle, this exact thing would be emphasized in the beginning (levin mentioned this in their comment and it was probably done in the beginning of the circles I’ve participated in, as well; I don’t remember what the exact preliminaries were, but it certainly matches my general sense of the spirit of the circle).
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear you feel more comfortable setting boundaries now. I think it is a good flag that some people might not be in a place to do that, so we should be mindful of social / status dynamics and try our best to make this truly opt-in.
I agree there are other types of feedback that are probably better for most people in most cases, and that Doom Circles are just one format that is not right for lots of people. I meant to emphasize that in the post but I see that might not have come through.
Thanks for your open and thoughtful response.
Just to emphasise, I would bet that ~all participants would get a lot less value from one / a few doom circle sessions than they would from:
cultivating skills to ask / receive feedback that is effective (with all the elements I’ve written about above) which they can use across time—including after leaving a workshop, and / or;
just a pervasive thread throughout the workshop helping people develop both these skills and also initiate some relationships at the workshops where they can keep practising this feedback seeking / giving in future.
I did loads of this kind of stuff on (granted, somewhat poorly executed) graduate schemes and it proved persistently valuable, and helped you get ‘buddies’ who you could be this open, reflective and insight-seeking with.
I feel like I would re-edit this post maybe to emphasise “this is an option, but not necessarily the lead option”, because its original positioning feels more like it’s a canonical approach?
Sadly I think I would have been a fairly good example of most younger EAs still forging their sense of self and looking for belonging to a community; in particular the kinds of people who might feel they need this kind of feedback. So if these are going to be run up again, I’d think reflecting on this in setting terms / design would be useful.
Thanks for the follow-up! I’m working on a different format that I think might address some of your concerns (I posted this quickly to link to it in an email about the new format).
I agree I should add a caveat above. It seems like you and others are getting the impression that I think this is the best way to get feedback/I’m an expert on Doom Circles (which is understandable, since I chose to post about them!). I’ll write something quickly now (I don’t have childcare at the moment, so might make changes next week).
Also agree I could have done more to explain the importance of setting norms. I’ll make a note to revisit next week when I have more time.
Really appreciate you pushing to make sure I understood the feedback :)